


It's so very hot, but I can still feel that chill running down my spine

by Bondie_Gal



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Original Character, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 07:08:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4616034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bondie_Gal/pseuds/Bondie_Gal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agent Tyler Hoyt went through all kinds of hell, but now he's back, and he's ready to pick up his badge once more. And with an offer to join Agent Phillip Coulson's team, who is Tyler to refuse?</p>
<p>But after his traumatic experiences, he is no longer the agent, or the man he once was. Can he help his new team keep the world safe from the new threats that it faces? Or will he succumb to the broken man he was when SHIELD found him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's so very hot, but I can still feel that chill running down my spine

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! 
> 
> This is an OC story that I've had in my head for months, but I wasn't really sure if I should write it up or not. So please read through, and let me know if it looks interesting at all! And also if you have any questions/if I've gotten something wrong then please let me know! I am English so I apologize beforehand, because I don't know everything about American culture, so please be respectful if I've gotten anything slightly off in that department.
> 
> Other than that, thanks for reading!

_Have you ever been freezing cold, in a place where it's so, SO warm?_

 

_I don't mean warm, no, I mean blisteringly hot. Where the ground beneath your feet burns against your skin, if they meet for more than a few seconds. Where every movement you make, you can feel your skin bumping together, wet and sticky. A place that amounts to your tongue becoming a dry mass in your mouth, (perhaps that's because you haven't had a proper drink for 9 hours, but either way, it sucks)._

 

_But despite all of those things, reminding you that it's far too hot to be cold, you are. Goosebumps appear, scattered all over your arms. A chill runs down your spine, unnerving you, sending a series of shivers all over your body._

 

_In that one moment, everything changed. From hot to cold. From strong to weak. From brave to broken._

 

_Life is made up of small, yet incredibly significant moments. What we are remembered for when we are gone. What people will tell their friends and families about us. Most importantly though, they are what defines us._

 

 

“Honestly Robert, how do you expect him to go back into the field after everything that happened?” 

 

He barely hears it, the sounds still muffled in his mind. He's somewhere else at the moment. He's  _there_ . 

 

“Look at him Marie, the boy is constantly left to his own thoughts, he needs to get back out there, to have a distraction.” 

 

A hand hits his back on the last word, and he flinches, almost ready for some form of pain, but nothing comes. He looks over at his father, Robert Gonzales, one of the currently highest ranking SHIELD agents, and is met with strong eyes. He instantly directs his gaze back towards the mug cupped in between his hands,  _hand_ , he thinks. 

 

The mug wasn't warm any more. He remembers it being warm, now, it was stone cold. 

 

_How long was I zoned out for?_

 

“Tyler, are you okay?” Mother asks worriedly, another SHIELD worker, nowhere near of the same importance as Robert. She works in the offices division, constantly swarmed with paperwork, retired from her days working as an agent.

 

“Yeah, I'm fine.” He mumbles, almost too quiet for anybody to hear him. He still wasn't entirely used to being back amongst other people, to having normal conversations. He'd grown isolated in the past few months, since he got back from... He shot up out of his seat, cutting his thoughts from that awful place, and smiled at his mother. He's got to show her that everything is okay, that he can do this.

 

“I'm just going to get another coffee, if you'll excuse me.” He slides out of the booth that they were seated in, and walks up to get in line.

 

They were at Ruthie's Diner, somewhere in East Los Angeles. It had been an easy city for Tyler to blend in to, to get some time away from SHIELD. He had an apartment, about 20 minutes away, paid and stocked for all by SHIELD. After his time recovering in psychological institutions, muscular therapy practice's, and even a brief period locked away in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, Maria Hill decided it was time for Tyler to come back to civilization. She had faith in him, just like his father did, that he could get better.

 

Now, he was here with both of his parents, discussing the offer that was made by none other than Agent Phillip Coulson. See, during the Shitari invasion- that everybody kept telling Tyler about, as he wasn't actually here to witness it- Coulson had supposedly been stabbed by an Asgardian warrior named 'Loki'. And thanks to his near death experience, Nick Fury, Director of all things SHIELD, has managed to swing Coulson his own self-selected team, with basically free reign for all the missions and ops that he decides to go for.

 

It was a pretty sweet deal, and Tyler hasn't wanted anything more since he-

 

“Tyler,” Robert's voice came up right behind him, as that reaffirming grasp reappeared on his shoulder. He slid Tyler's wallet into his hand, his left hand, and whispered, “It may help if you actually take this with you.” He patted Tyler's back, and swiftly returned to the booth.

 

Puffing out a small sigh, Tyler mentally thanks his father for not letting him look like a complete fool. If things weren't the way they were right now, he knows that he would have, and not because it would have been funny, but because it was a mistake. And mistakes have consequences.

 

“Hey, sorry to snap you out of your trance there,” The girl at the front of the queue- well, _now_ at the front of the queue, she wasn't when he first got there, in fact they'd been about 6th in the queue at that point- had turned to face him, and was smiling awkwardly at him. “Do you have, like, 50 cents I could borrow?”

 

He stalls for a few moments, struggling to form words. He goes in to panic at times like this, when anomalies pop up. He can handle most things, even in this weak state of mind- a band of armed robbers rolling through, a fire starting in one of the back rooms, an assassin bursting through the window set with the task of taking him out. He could handle all of that, because it's what he's spent all his life learning to do. It's muscle memory. But this is the part that he's forgotten how to handle; the part that he used to be so good at: _people._ He could read into people, evaluate their likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, and so much more, usually within less than a minute of talking to them. Now that ability has been replaced with simple threat assessment, _are they dangerous?_

 

He looks at the girl; firstly, he took in her eyes, which were a deep chocolate-brown colour. There was almost a glint of light in them, giving the facade of innocence; but he knew that those eyes, that sat below her slightly south-slanting eyebrows, _and_ combined with the way the corners of her mouth upturned into a mischievous smirk, held their own secrets. She had long dark hair, that curled into small, messy bundles at her shoulders, perhaps implying that she was in a rush for something this morning, and did not have a lot of time to get ready, or maybe that she just didn't care. Furthermore, he noticed the way her slim, narrow body slouched back against the counter, one arm resting on it, and one leg crossed over the other. She looked relaxed, calm, maybe even confident. Which is strange for somebody who doesn't have enough money to pay for her own coffee. If he had to wrap up her appearance in one word, for now, it'd be _mystery_.

 

She clears her throat, looking down innocently at his wallet- which he has started grasping incredibly tightly for some reason- in an effort to get him moving, and it takes him a second to snap into gear.

 

“Oh yeah, sorry, let me look.” He pulls his wallet up to his hand, making brief eye contact with the girl as she giggles at his helplessness. Even he'd admit it, he probably looks like a dumbstruck fool who's stumbling because he met a pretty girl.

 

_That is definitely NOT the case._

 

Sweeping through the notes in his wallet, he finds no change. Why would he have change? He never actually goes out, never finds the need to leave his apartment. And even when he does, it definitely isn't to go and buy things, SHIELD have done that already.

 

“The smallest thing I've got is five bucks.” He says, for some reason, with a slightly dissappointed tone. 

 

_Sympathetic. It's a sympathetic tone._

 

She says it's no problem, and she turns around, ready to tell the server to cancel her order.

 

“Hey, urm, what were you getting?” He butts in, moving to her side at the counter.

 

“Honestly, don't worry about it.” She smiles again and looks up at him briefly. This time though, it's not mischievous. It's that look of innocence that he thought he may have saw in her the first time round, and it makes her look-

 

_Normal, she looks completely normal. You were NOT about to say pretty. You were about to say normal._

 

“Hey,” He calls to the server, “We'll have whatever she wants, and, one tea.”

 

“Tea?Wow, how _sophisticated._ ” Mystery girl teased.

 

_Hold up, you did not just call her-_

 

“Well, I've been living off of coffee for way too long, so why not switch to another unhealthy alternative.” Tyler responds.

 

The girl besides him chuckles again, before picking up a more sincere expression, “Seriously, thanks.”

 

“Don't mention it.” He reassured her.

 

“My name's Skye,” she holds out her hand, “I figure you should know my name if you're buying me a drink.”

 

He smiles. _Skye._ That's a really-

 

_Stupid name. And obviously fake._

 

He lifts his hand before flinching slightly. It's _that_ hand. Well, actually, it's _not_ that hand, and that is the problem. She looks at him questioningly for a moment, and he sees her hand beginning to recoil, slowly, in response. The other thing though, is that he knows his parents are watching, paying close attention to this small, insignificant interaction.

 

So he swallows down the lump in his throat, and gently takes her hand. For such a small hand and nimble fingers, he's surprised at how warm her touch is. And for the first time since he'd had his surgery, his hand doesn't feel cold.

 

“Here you two go,” The server calls to them, placing both of their drinks on to the counter. His mug, filled almost to the brim, with the teabag floating around the surface, heat and steam pouring out of it. Her cardboard to-go cup, keeping all of the warmth and the steam inside of it, sealed tightly by the lid on the top.

 

Skye takes her cup in her hand, slips a serviette into her small pouch bag, and looks up at Tyler.

 

“Well, thank you for my morning fix, I suppose I'll see you around.” She smirked at him, again.

 

“Hopefully,” He replied, almost under a spell, eyes never leaving her as she walked away. He blindly grabbed for his drink, unable to feel the burning sensation in his right hand when he poked the rim of the cup.

 

“I'm Tyler, by the way!” He shouted to her, earning him one last smile and wave before she left the diner, leaving him to stand there like a blushing fool.

 

The only thing that managed to draw his attention away from the door was the thunderous roar of an explosion, that couldn't have been all that far away.

 

He looked to his parents, who were looking out of the window of the shop, Robert already pulling out his phone ready to dial an emergency SHIELD number.

 

When they turned to look back at him, the cup was on the floor, smashed to pieces, and Tyler...

 

Tyler was gone.

 

 


End file.
